Thievery Corporation

Thievery Corporation’s 7th studio album, Saudade is filled with the essence of true bossa nova and the Brazilian-Born genre that first connected them as a band. The album draws influence from classic Brazilian performers like Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gal Costa, and Luis Bonfá—along with Serge Gainsbourg, Ennio Morricone, and more modern artists like electro-samba pioneer Isabelle Antena—Saudade to achieve its delicate yet deeply sensuous sound with the help of more than a dozen guest musicians. Over the years, Thievery Corporation have given nods to their bossa-nova influence on individual album tracks, slipping those quietly enchanting songs into recordings that reveal the duo’s careful studying of everything from Jamaican dub reggae to punk to vintage film soundtracks to psychedelic space rock. Thievery Corporation has become known for the carnival-esque atmosphere of their live shows, during which they bring out a 15-member live band of musicians and vocalists. The group has sold out shows internationally and sold over 1.2 million records worldwide. 

Café Tacuba

Café Tacvba is Mexico's pre-eminent rock band and it keeps getting better and more ambitious. From the beginning CaféTacvba looked both inside and outside Mexico, drawing on new wave, ska and funk and finding no barriers between the peppy polkas of norteño music and speedy, cheeky punk... Yet Tacvba's eclecticism isn't merely a whimsical grab-bag or a technical stunt. It's an embrace of possibilities and a blithe refusal to accept restrictions... The band's seriousness is inseparable from its sense of fun... Café Tacvba dares to treat rock as art... better than almost all other rock these days... one of the most important bands in the hemisphere... a smart, cosmopolitan band with a broad streak of lighthearted surrealism.–NY Times